The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-07-09
Bill Nye's Speech.

luce the most successful and most
prosperous republic known thus far
|to history, sent forth upon the sultry
air Its first feeble cry. One hundred
sand eleven years ago this morning,
me small red infant known as Amer
can Liberty jammed her purple fists
.into her watery eyes and made a few
desultory remarks which were heard
10 the uttermost parts of the earth.
10 day she is a full-grown person
with dignified mien. and has had a
statue of herself taken. which stands
IN the harbor of New York and
although she lights up the country
sfor miles around, with her tall
torch, there is no one who he's ever
been able to hold candle to her in
tho ] liberty business.
Those who are to day within the
sound of my voice, and who are over
one hundred and eleven years of age,
willperhaps recall to their minds the
deplorable condition of things here
in our young and struggling country
at that time.
If We moved out West in order to
secure more freedom, the venture
some savage filled US full of arrows
till we looked like toothpick. holders,
and when we came back for protec-
ton, the naughty Briton assessed us
and crushed US beneath the iron heel
of the despot.
Now. wherever the starry banner
hangs out to greet the gentle breeze,
all, all are free. Little do we know
to-day, here in America, what it is to
suffer for freedom. Liberty does a
good business here in the United
now, and the man who runs out OF
freedom shows that he is a shiftless
man and poor proyider.
Only little over a century ago we
dared not go out after dark without a
chilled steel corset, for fear that the
maro0n-cOlored children of the forest
might let the pale, shimmering moon.
light in among our vital organs by
means of their crude tomahawks.
Then life was indeed uncertain and
disagreeable. People remained al
home rather than return to their
houses with holes in themselves and
wildly disheveled brains.
Now a man can start out and &C
anywhere if he will pay his fare.
And SO we are marching on. What
grand stride it is from the despo.
tism of century ago, to the long
and short haul of to-day? What a
mighty leap from the barbarism of a
hundred years ago, to the glorious
sunlight of freedom which we enjoy
now?
Where once the slow-going OK team
and Belcher box wagon crept through
the wilderness, liable to be scattered
over the green sward at any moment
by the yielding Injun, now the pa
tient newspaper man, the member ol
Congress and the Associate Justice oi
the Supreme Court. with their coats
over their arms, toll along-the level
sweep of railroad which they assisted
to build by means of their land
grants and moral encouragement
looking ever and anon over their
shoulders for the approach of the
yelling modern IDjun.
Times have indeed changed in the
past century. A hundred years age
whiskey was sold at forty cents pei
gallon, and every other man you met
was statesman. Now you have tc
pay fifteen cents for enough whiskey
to wet the bottom of small tumblel
and there hasn't been a speech made
in the House of Representatives fol
three years that was listened to BY
anybody but the stenographer.
So liberty, while enlarging hel
field. has not always ameliorated the
condition of mankind. We are prone
to boast over the enormous mass o
freedom which we have accumulated
here in America, and yet the free
dom of the press has been greatly
impaired. if may be allowed tina
expression.
Too much caste has been the resul
of recent laws. A year ago held VI
my head and mingled with class o
men who to-day refuse to recognize
me. They were then. and are now
OF course, men of wealth and socia
position but so am /.
allude to the railway conductor
of the United States.
A year ago l knew them from New
York to San Francisco, and associated
with them frequently, allowing my
self to be drawn forward into thu
smoking-car to mingle with then
81 80 .as